When Being A Good Guy Means You're Not The Hero
by OrisounAsh
Summary: Even his family, the few he cared for more than any life – more than his own – would never know the agony he'd suffered, or the suffering he'd caused; he was still afraid that somewhere, down in that black part of him, he would remember where all that blood had come from, and it would finally break that little shred of life he now held dear. (One-Shot)


Author's Note: This...thing was written in about an hour, and being the horrible author I am, I haven't proofed it yet. So if you see anything out of place, let me know. Also, blame Jarlyfan626 for implanting the desire to write something about Leverage. Disclaimer on home page.

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Both sides were there, both sides and him. He'd been on one team, he was now on another. His employer, his friends, his _family_ was just in front of him, in reach but by God they were so far away. They were all of them handcuffed, arms between their knees chained to the cell wall, proper torture style, denying them movement, denying them sleep, denying them basic dignity; he'd been there, in that position, and he could still feel the pain, even if he'd locked it away somewhere deep, in that deep place not even his family knew about.

And the other side of this series of unforgivable events stood ever so close, close enough that in the darkness that clung to the room his green eyes could be seen shining with excitement. And Fear. There was always fear in the men he met, fear of dying, fear of living, fear of being wrong. Fear of miscalculation. It made men dangerous, that Fear, made them easy to read and unpredictable, and it gave them fuel to act on whatever foolish, evil intent they would never try when clarity and certainty ruled their minds. And that green-eyed man stood with his Madness worn with comfortable style, while Enjoyment attempted to outweigh the Fear, though it was Pride that won out in the end.

Oh Pride. It could kill just by existence, something not even he could claim; it has been said Pride brings about ruin to any who exalt its presence. He'd fallen to it in his younger days, when it was a virtue to flaunt Pride and rejoice in the knowledge that that singularly dangerous emotion was birthed not only by from luck and skill but from that inexplicable certainty that nothing could ever touch the heights Pride could bring. It is a game, really, a circular game that goes 'round and 'round and 'round until it stops. It always stops with Fear.

Fear lives in every soul, regardless of what the mouth might say, or the mind may think, or the body may protest.

Life revolves around Fear.

And he felt it, felt the presence of this emotion, of a _thing_ waking from a pit much darker than the one he kept his pain and his past locked away in. He could see it in the man in front of him, he could see it in the man's two large coworkers. Right and left hands, these men attempted to hide their fear, but they couldn't disguise it as anything but; their posturing, their feigned confidence grew only from the proximity of their master, as dogs muster courage when fighting as a pack. Their guns…their weapons of cowardice and easy immorality lazed about in their hands, supposed by the pair that size and substance outweighed proficiency and skill. Not Luck, though; Luck could override any set rules of the game, but he was at ease knowing these men had not an ounce of skill, and he would make certain they had no Luck.

The left and right hands of the monster that stood staring him down – as there is no other way to describe what he saw, what he knew to be a thing spawned from the muck and the mire and the filth and the trash he himself has long trekked through – moved to give their owner more room to gesticulate in some form of grand fashion, to speak in what the creature must have thought to be in an eloquent and composed manner; he wasn't giving away any of his attention to the man's words. He looked past the postulating madman to his family, his blue eyes roamed over their bodies, feeling Anger well up at how weak they seemed, so tired and worn, struggling to simply stand without trembling, and he knew, he _knew_ none of the three could live another day in the same conditions as beef cattle waiting for slaughter. Anger arrived then; Anger for them, Anger for where they were and who had taken them, and Anger his failure to exert his talent , his skill, in ways that could have shielded his family from this horror. They were not right for this pain the way he was, they were never supposed to experience a single moment of what he knew to be Hell; perhaps worse, as his family was composed of innocents, and innocents do not fall into that pit of suffering.

It was this thought that sent Anger rushing forward, carried on the wings of Fear. It always comes back to Fear.

As the green-eyed man's monologue continued, he diverted his sight to the two men flanking the orator; there was still Fear there, but it was being followed by Uncertainty. It was dangerous, ever so dangerous now. They were worried, worried for their own safety now. He could only assume it this stemmed from his own mannerisms, the indifference in his posture, the lazy tilt of his head; if nothing else, he has learned well how to mask every thought, every motion by the consistent, sometimes unwanted attention of the more…feminine aspect of his family.

It was by the grace of God she hadn't found herself here.

Now should be the time to move, to strike; the two guardsmen were tightening their grip on that he could (correctly) assume were fully automatic weapons. Did they know the true threat they posed? With such a large amount of Uncertainty and Fear, they were tight and trembling inside, worried for their own safety than that of their owner. These men he now knew had never murdered a human being so close, so personal before. And they showed a Fear associated with the last shard of rational thought remaining; they didn't want this blood on their already stained hands. Blood never washes away, not completely. It never leaves, it never fades, it never dulls, it never stops its reminders of the things done to bring it into a life, and it is impossible to forget. He'd realized this some time ago, knowing then that the horrors he'd done out of Pride and Fear and Uncertainty would follow him regardless of his choice in the matter. Even his family, the few he cared for more than any life – more than his own – would never know the agony he'd endured, or the suffering he'd caused; he was still afraid that somewhere, down in that black part of him, he would remember where all that blood had come from, and it would finally break that little shred of life he now held dear.

Because taking a life was so terribly easy. Physically, it was just the pull of a trigger; in a second the brain moves the hand, and the single command given is one of the simplest of all: move. It is after this little twitch that the firing pin connects with the round, the bullet is ejected, the recoil reverberates through the body, and the crack of a gunfire is heard; _pop pop pop _and the world is silent. Afterwards, something even more simple occurs.

A body drops from living to dead without pretense. If watched closely, a spray of a fine red mist can be seen expelled from the non-living thing, and if done properly, not a single utterance is heard. Life revolving around Fear is clipped short.

Unless there is a problem. Unless the bullet misses the brain, the heart. Unless the bullet doesn't kill.

Then there are the screams. It is the screaming he hears at night, the sounds of Life not able to be stopped until pain and suffering and violence decide when it should go. There had been a time in which he'd though himself numb to the crying, the begging, the pleading for help or mercy; he was wrong. It wasn't indifference; it was Fear. He was terrified he would find himself lost in his own thoughts, unable to wake from a nightmare that would shake his foundations of "awake" and "asleep". He was terrified others would know instantly what he had done, and so he condensed the Fear into a coldness he carried around at the center of him. He will never be rid of this cold, or this Fear.

And then he found his family. They had accepted his first few layers of rough and gruff, allowing him to grow close to a tangled web of individuals he wanted nothing more than to protect. But they would never know, _never_ know what truly sat in the middle of him, and he's made certain that Fear would do nothing to harm them. And yet…

They were now here. His family was here and regardless of anyone's protests to the contrary, he had put them in this grimy, damp, weakly-lit cell in the presence of a man so utterly bent it would take a lifetime to understand a minute facet of his mind. He had put such thoughts away for now; he needed just a second more to think; he was certain this terrible situation was about to grow into something monstrous, but afterwards…afterwards his family would be free.

His body worked much faster than his mind, however, and the world became blurred with a tangle of sweeping legs and flailing arms and the sound of bodies impacting with the grotesque sound of beaten meat and cracking bone. There were three, and then there was one. The green-eyed man who had so long enjoyed the sound of his own voice was backed against a wall, his…assistants dead before him; it wasn't often those who threatened the family were found rendered unserviceable for life, but even rarer still was finding them only as mounds of unusable flesh. Those two men paid dearly for their association with the madman, but was it necessary? If reflected upon at a later date, it would be possible to say that though they had been in the service of such a creature, their lives were not in need of taking.

But that would be much later.

For now he could only think on the one thing posing a threat, to the one thing that could cause more harm to his family; this man wasn't going to last the next thirty seconds.

And then the world changed again.

It was that same familiar _pop pop pop _he'd come to know and despise that shattered the tenuous silence. There were holes in him now, holes he had become well acquainted with; it was innumerable the number to time he'd seen these in his own flesh, but for some reason, now was different. He could feel himself falling, feel the shattered bone and warm rush of scarlet as his useless body crumpled without ceremony; he'd missed something, he'd missed something important. There had been another gun. It was a silly little mistake, a small thing he should have calculated in his approach to the situation. But he hadn't.

There was a sudden welling inside him, and it was then he realized why there were always screams, why the pleading was directed at those who'd pulled the trigger: Fear. It wasn't fear of dying, it was fear of leaving life unfinished. He was supposed to protect his family, he was supposed to rescue them from any harm; now Life was fleeing from his body with effortless ease, and it left him terrified. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. The bad guy was supposed to die, not the hero.

But he wasn't the hero, was he?

He was the dark thing under the bed, unseen when the lights were on, but inhuman when all went black.

So how could he have helped them, how could the creature he was have saved those who lived with illumination guiding them? He'd played pretend, and now he'd been found out. But he couldn't stop the pleading, the screaming, begging for a little more time, just a little more so that he could tell them all they deserved to know. All the black parts of him. He didn't want to be remembered as the hero; he needed them to understand their faith was childish, and all children should know to look under their beds at night.

The green-eyed man was gloating with a smile, but it wouldn't be his final sight; he watched as his family sent him shocked, terrified, _worried_ reactions, and with that, he knew.

Fear. It all came down to fear. He'd always known it, even now. But when his screaming finally stopped, and his heart gave its last struggling beat, a thought – the last he had – broke through the Fear.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it's right for the hero to come from the dark.

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Author's End Note: Yes, my favourite character dies. Yes, I know that is a horrible thing to do to him. But I had it stuck in my head and I'm not going to ignore Mr. Spencer no matter what the subject is. For clarification, the green-eyed ma is no one important, just a plot device to pit Mr. Spencer against; the three individuals captured were Nate, Hardison, and Parker. I flipped a coin for them. Harsh, I know. And obviously Sophie is out of the mess I put the rest in.


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